Columbus Voyage of 1492
Columbus set sail from Palos on August 3, 1492, at sunrise. First, however, he had arranged for sending his young son Diego to Cordova, to be cared for by Beatrix Enríquez, with whom was his younger son Ferdinand. First also — supremely first! — he had made confession and solemnly received the Sacrament. As his ships cleared the bar of Saltes and gathered headway, naught but inspiring could have been the spectacle: the high prows, the huge square sails each emblazoned with its cross, the magnificent sweep of the rakish lateens athwart the towering sterns, the flags and streamers; the officers crowding the poop-decks, the sailors thronging the forecastles and crow's-nests — all saluting, many praying, some no doubt weeping, all crying "Adios!" How tremendous it all was! How much it meant!
As
a mere feat of seamanship, however, this first recorded voyage
across the Atlantic was not considerable. The flotilla left the
Canary Island of Gomera on September 6, 1492, and shaped a course
westward. The winds blew steadily astern; no storms arose; the
resources of navigation were in no wise taxed. Indeed, on the 16th
of September and often afterwards, Columbus notes that "they met
with very temperate breezes so that there was great pleasure in
enjoying the mornings, nothing being wanted but the song of
nightingales. . . . The weather," he says, "was like April in
Andalusia."
Apprehension nevertheless did not sleep; it lurked. Already solemn
Teneriffe had raised above them in greeting — mayhap in warning!
—its staff of fire. The needle, victim perchance of subtle
necromancy, had begun straying from the pole. Grass, first in green
tufts, then in fine masses, then in tangles and skeins with crabs
enmeshed, that grass before which a Prince of Portugal had once
turned back, was all about them.
And those winds, so balmy but so fatefully setting into the unknown
West! Was it not all a snare of unseen Powers? There were murmurs —
plots, it is said — to seize the Admiral unawares and hurl him
overboard. Columbus, on his part, laughed at the fears of the
sailors and made them big offers of wealth. Had he not the whole of
Cathay before him?
That in his mind Columbus had Asia, the country of the Great Kaan,
as in some sort a destination, cannot well be gainsaid if we are
prepared to yield any substantial credence to his Journal as we have
it. According to that document, he was expecting, as early as the
16th of September, to come upon "islands" but "made the main land to
be more distant," and thought it better to go at once to the
continent and afterwards to the islands. But of the events of this
voyage, his though it was, Columbus was not sole arbiter.
Martín Alonso Pinzón, by circumstances and
also perhaps by agreement, was an associate; and in his mind,
evidently, the destination was Cipangu or Japan. As will be
recalled, he had brought from Rome a "chart" and a " book, " both of
which he had handed to Columbus. Now in the "book" was this
sentence: "In navigating by the Mediterranean Sea to the end of
Spain, and thence in the direction where the Sun sinks between the
North and the South, you will find a land of Sypanso [Cipangu] which
is so fertile and so rich that by aid of its resources you will [be
able to] subjugate both Africa and Europe." Furthermore, inspired by
the " book, " and also by Marco Polo, Pinzón in a recruiting appeal
to the seamen of Palos had said: "Friends, come with us! Come with
us on this voyage! Here you are in poverty. Come with us, for
according to accounts you will find the houses with roofs of gold,
and you will return rich and prosperous!"
When, therefore, on the 25th of September, Martín Alonso called
Columbus's attention to the fact that, according to a " chart "
which both were using, the flotilla ought to be sighting "certain
islands, " we are not surprised, for it was islands, or at least the
island of Japan, and not a mainland, in which the interest of Pinzón
centered. And when, on the 7th of October, Columbus in deference to
the wish of Pinzón actually changed direction from west to
west-southwest; and when, on the 12th, land, Guanahani or Watling
Island, rewarded the change, it was natural that both Columbus and
Pinzón should be convinced that they were in an archipelago of
Asiatic Indía, with Japan not far away.
The expedition now had traversed 1123 leagues, or 4492 Italian
miles, from the Canaries; and yet, as Ferdinand Columbus informs us,
700 or 750 leagues (3000 miles) was the distance at which the
Admiral had told his men that he expected to find land. If this
"land" was the Antillia-Salvagio Reyella Group (West Indies or
Antilles), as seems probable, it is represented on Behaim's globe
(through a composite Antillia) as from 2200 to 2500 miles west from
the Canaries; and it was at about this distance, on and near the
25th of September, that both Columbus and Pinzón began anxiously
scanning the horizon. The fact that 3000 miles was given out by
Columbus as the distance to be covered before land might be looked
for, may be explained by his wish to mislead his crews into the
belief that they were committed to a longer unbroken voyage than
they really were. He, in fact, states repeatedly, in his Journal,
that he kept a dual reckoning, one of actual distances for himself
and one of minimized distances for his men. How he could have
contrived to do this, with half a dozen pilots and a score or more
of others at his elbow more competent at rating a ship's progress
than himself, "goodness, " as Lord Dunraven puts it, "only knows."
A landfall, in the case of any fifteenth century voyage of
discovery, was momentous, but especially was it so in the case of a
Spanish voyage. Commanders fell on their knees and gave thanks;
crews chanted the Gloria in Excelsis Deo and crowded into the
rigging and tops; flags were run up and guns were fired. So was it
at Guanahani on October 12, 1492. Clad in armor, over which, true to
his taste in color and to his instinct for effect, he had thrown the
crimson robe of an Admiral of Castile, Columbus, with the furled
royal standard grasped in his left hand, bent low to the earth,
which he saluted. His actions were imitated by the captains of the
Pinta and Nina, Martín Alonso Pinzón and his brother Vicente Yañes,
who bore standards emblazoned each with a green cross. Then, rising,
Columbus summoned to him the royal notary and the royal inspector as
witnesses, unfurled the royal standard, drew his sword, and
proclaimed the island the possession henceforth of the Crown of
Spain, naming it San Salvador.
So the day ended; but early the next morning, as we are told, the
natives gathered on the shore in large numbers, and, destitute of
beards themselves, looked with wonder on the bearded Spaniards, on
Columbus in particular. To his beard and those of his men they
"reached out their fingers, and viewed attentively the whiteness of
the Spanish hands and faces."
On the 28th of October the expedition discovered Cuba, and on the
5th of December, Hayti or Española. Everywhere Columbus was charmed
with the scenery. "The herbage is like that of April in Andalusia."
Andalusia serves always as the standard of comparison. So pleasant
are the songs of birds that "it seems as though a man could never
wish to leave the place." Parrots rise in "flocks so dense as to
conceal the sun." In Cuba are "palm trees differing from those in
Spain and Guinea." As for the inhabitants of the new regions, they
are "docile," "very gentle and kind," going "naked without arms and
without law." But the things which make a particular appeal to the
discoverer are five: gold, religion, spices, Cipangu, and Cathay.
Gold he began inquiring about from the natives on the day following
the landing. "I was attentive and took trouble to ascertain, " he
says, "if there was gold." But gold, in the Journal, is a theme
hardly more emphasized than religion. On the very day of the landing
Columbus writes: "I believe that they [the natives] would easily be
made Christians as it appeared to me they had no sect."
He was equally attentive to any mention of spices. "According as I
obtain tidings of gold or spices, I shall settle what must be done."
Moreover it is in connection with spices that the Journal introduces
Cipangu and Cathay. Having, on the 7th of October, given over the
search for the "mainland," Columbus on the 21st speaks of proceeding
to Cipangu, which he identifies with Cuba because of the latter's
"size and riches." It is better, he says, to "inspect much land
until some very profitable country is reached, my belief being that
it will be rich in spices." And on the 24th he resumes: "On the
spheres that I saw [before leaving Spain], and on the paintings of
world-maps, Cipangu is in this region." Then, on the 26th of
October, the subject is dropped with the remark: "I departed . . .
for Cuba, for, by the signs the Indians made of its greatness and of
its gold and pearls, I thought that it must be the one — that is to
say, Cipangu."
But the mainland recurs in his thoughts; and on the 30th he decides,
from a statement by the Indians, that Cuba itself is the mainland of
Asia, with Cathay and the Great Kaan somewhere therein; and that he
must send to the latter the credentials he bears from Ferdinand and
Isabella. Accordingly, on the 2d of November, he dispatches from a
point on the Cuban coast his official interpreter, Luis de Torres, a
converted Jew, with a party carrying " specimens of spices, " to
"ask for the King of that land." To him they are to deliver the
credentials, and from him they are to inquire "concerning certain
provinces, ports, and rivers, of which the Admiral has notice."
Later, Columbus identified Cipangu with Hayti; but Cuba he
consistently continued to regard as the mainland, peering
expectantly into its bays and up its streams for "populous cities"
such as the Kinsay of Marco Polo and of the world maps, maps like
Fra Mauro's of 1457-59, which he "saw" before leaving Spain. Having
completed his voyage by "finding what he sought, " though manifestly
not "populous cities," Columbus set sail from the eastern end of the
island of Hayti for home on January 16, 1493.
Two occurrences hastened his return. On November 21, 1492, Martín
Alonso Pinzón, impatient for the discovery of Cipangu and the
realization of those dreams of gold on the strength of which he had
secured enlistments at Palos, had gone off in the Pinta for some
prospecting of his own. Then, on Christmas night, the Santa Maria
had been wrecked, leaving the Admiral with only the Nina wherein to
continue his explorations. Thus handicapped, he had been forced to
build on Espanola (Hayti) a fortress, La Navidad, where he left
thirty-seven of his men, and crowded into the Nina the remainder.
Pinzón had rejoined the expedition on January 6, 1493, but the
Admiral was much vexed and not disposed to parley or linger. Nor is
his vexation hard to understand. Columbus was the titular and
technical head of the expedition, but in reality he was much the
servant of his lieutenant, for Pinzón was a Spaniard, the friend and
fellow-townsman of the crews, who would not have endured to see him
disciplined.
In strong contrast to the voyage out, the voyage back was
tempestuous. Storms began on the 12th of February and so grew in
violence that on the 14th Columbus placed in a barrel a parchment
inscribed with an account of his discoveries and committed it to the
sea. But he succeeded in making port in the Portuguese island of
Santa María, one of the Azores, whence he sailed for Castile. More
storms delayed him, but on the 4th of March the Nina entered the
Tagus and anchored off Rastelo. Of the fate of the Pinta, meanwhile,
nothing had been known since the 14th of February, when she had
disappeared running before the wind.
Back to: The Spanish Conquerors
